through whom big operators were getting too much land, the Land Office should have investigated. The machinery and the men to investigate were there: special agents, forest superintendents and all the other divisions of experts. And the records showed that these all had investigated or passed upon all these papers. Yet there were Hyde and Benson dealing on the open market in scrip!
Burns' Imagination
Bums didn't have to be a detective to detect the fraud, nor did he have to be very shrewd to guess who the guilty official were. Some or all of these experts, posted all along the lines to prevent fraud, must be corrupt. Schneider told of two that were, but these couldn't be all. To settle upon the others, all Bums had to do was to follow a typical, fraudulent claim from its inception out in the field to the Land Office, through the proper divisions there and thus back again to the local land offices, where the patents were delivered. When he had done that. Bums "knew" that not only Forest Superintendent Allen and Special Agent Prior at Los Angeles were corrupt, but that Grant Taggart, the forest supervisor at San Francisco and H. H. Jones, his chief and Allen's, at Washington were corrupt; and that Major Harlan, the chief of the special agents, and J. J. Barnes, the expert of the school-lands division,—all of these and many others had to be corrupt. The Land Office, inside and out, at Washington and in the field, must be corrupt from the rim to the core.
And so Burns told the Secretary, and the Secretary went "right up in the air." When Bums went on to say that certain officials, whom he named,—men high up in the Department; veterans in the service; gentlemen in deportment; members of good families; friends of great men—when Bums said they were "crooks," the Secretary demanded to know how the detective knew. And when the detective said the fraud simply could not go on without their knowledge and connivance, the Secretary asked for evidence.
"I have no evidence yet," Burns had to admit; "that's only my theory."
"Oh," said the Secretary, "if that's all you've got! Well, we shall have to have more than theory, you know. "
The Uses of Imagination
Bums did not resent the Secretary's incredulity. He was used to it. He tells how in his most celebrated case, the Taylor-Bredell-Jacobs and Kendig-Philadelphia-Lancaster counterfeit conspiracy, he had a similar experience with Chief Wilkie. Bums assumed that very few engravers could have done that job. From talks with men in the business he learned of six who were capable of such perfect work. Four of them he found to be openly engaged all the time at legitimate labor. Thus by a process of elimination he settled his suspicion upon the other two, and, finding them grouped mysteriously but handily for crime, he wired Wilkie, who was then new in the service, that he had located the criminals.
"The Chief came rushing over to Philadelphia," Bums relates, "and talked of warrants. He was utterly disgusted when I told him that I had only formed my theory, and he laughed. Well, I laughed, too, and I laughed last. It took a year to get the evidence. It had taken only a few weeks to form my theory. But the evidence bore out the theory in detail."
Of course Burns has to get evidence. That's his business: to convict.
So he determined to make somebody confess. He picked out J. J. Barnes, an able clerk in the school-land division, who had been forty years in the service and stood high in the esteem of Mr. Hitchcock. All Burns had to go on was the theory that since the frauds went through his hands, Barnes, being experienced and intelligent, must know and do certain things that were wrong. Some people say Burns bluffs; they are wrong. Burns knows; he is sure; his mind's eye sees as surely as his physical eye; and his assurance counts. He confronted Barnes with a complete and graphic account of the manipulations of the land frauds. Barnes paled, and Bums, seeing he was right, accused him of accepting bribes. Barnes broke down and confessed.
Barnes turned out to be the clerk "B.," whom Schneider said Dimond had hired to keep Hyde and Benson posted. But Schneider didn't know it all. Barnes said it wasn't Dimond, but Hyde himself that had ruined him. Dimond's visit wasn't the first. Before that Hyde had come to Washington. Like Bums, Hyde had gone into the Land
